Tuesday 24th November 2015 @ 8.00 pm
Synod Hall, St Patrick's Cathedral
Cathedral Road, Armagh

On Tuesday 24th November, the Armagh Cathedrals Partnership will host a lecture by Dr Johnston McMaster:

“Still up for the Challenge? Reconciliation in a Crisis Society.”

The lecture will begin at 8.00 p.m. in the Synod Hall of St Patrick’s Cathedral, off Cathedral Road.

Dr McMaster writes, “Seventeen years on from the hope-filled Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still a long way from being a reconciled society. Things have changed for the better, but we remain a society limping from one crisis to another. There is a political inability to deal with the past and with sectarianism, both failures preventing the future. There is no vision of a common good. Faith communities are an integral part of these struggles and indeed failures.” If people of faith are still up for the challenge of reconciliation, he continues, “It means re-imagining and re-thinking reconciliation as well as renewing our vision and engagement. In the context of a crisis society, this lecture will explore the centrality of social justice to the Judeo-Christian vision of reconciliation.” It will be followed by an opportunity for discussion.

A minister of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Dr McMaster is a Senior Research Writer and Educator with the Ethical and Shared Remembering Project, 1912-1922, through the Junction, Derry Londonderry. For sixteen years he was Director of the Education for Reconciliation Programme of the Irish School of Ecumenics in Northern Ireland and Border Counties. He remains as an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin.

Looking forward to the event, Fr Peter McAnenly, said, “I look forward to hearing Johnston speak again. He has done extensive work on promoting reconciliation and peace building over the years. He reminds us that the work of reconciliation is a relationship-centric process and there must be trust built between sides for reconciliation to occur.”

Dean Gregory Dunstan said, “From a profoundly Christian perspective, Dr McMaster offers a penetrating diagnosis of our inability to recognize ‘the things of our peace’. We expect a challenging evening.”

For further information, please contact Armagh Parish Office, Tel. 028 3752 2813
or Armagh Public Library, Tel. 028 3752 3142